{"id":7035359,"date":"2026-08-09T15:55:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T15:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/most-x-accounts-posting-about-belfast-and-southampton-unrest-were-based-outside-uk-the-far-right\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T15:55:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T15:55:38","slug":"most-x-accounts-posting-about-belfast-and-southampton-unrest-were-based-outside-uk-the-far-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7035359","title":{"rendered":"Most X accounts posting about Belfast and Southampton unrest were based outside UK | The far right"},"content":{"rendered":"


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More than half the accounts that posted on Elon Musk\u2019s X about the rioting in Belfast and the civil disorder in Southampton<\/a> in June were based outside the UK, an analysis by the Guardian can reveal.<\/p>\n

Of the 8,672 accounts whose combined posts about the events exceeded 1,000 views, just 45.3% were shown as from the UK, according to the social media platform\u2019s own location function.<\/p>\n

One in six (16.8%) came from the US, 4.5% from Ireland, and about a quarter from all European countries other than the UK.<\/p>\n

Seven of the 12 most-read tweets about Belfast<\/a> and Southampton came from the US \u2013 including one from Musk himself and two other US \u201calt-right\u201d commentators \u2013 while an eighth was linked to North America.<\/p>\n

The analysis underlines that US rightwing actors are seeking to influence the UK and boost their position on X<\/a> in moments of disorder \u2013 an exploitation of flashpoint events that has only intermittently attracted political attention in Britain.<\/p>\n

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Methodology<\/h4>\n

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The Guardian collected 43,000 tweets mentioning Belfast, Southampton, Henry Nowak or Vickrum Digwa posted on X during the period of the unrest in both cities.<\/p>\n

This covered the period from 2 June to the end of 3 June for Southampton and from the evening of 8 June to the end of 9 June for Belfast.<\/p>\n

For X accounts whose combined tweets reached more than 1,000 views, we extracted their location and the number of times they have changed their username as shown in the \u201cabout this account\u201d tab.<\/p>\n

Using a large language model (LLM), the team first classified which posts were directly related to the protests in Belfast and Southampton, and then categorised them as containing explicit or implicit racist language or anti-immigration comments. For those about Belfast, we also classified tweets as containing calls inciting to violence.<\/p>\n

A team of three people manually verified more than 5,500 posts, statistically testing the accuracy of the model to be robust and in line with academic standards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n